A Curriculum Project

Sherry Spaulding
International Institute of Boston

The International Institute of Boston (IIB) has been in operation serving refugees and immigrants in the Boston community for more than 75 years. Through the years the agency has offered a variety of educational programs to refugees and immigrants and the opportunity for many talented teachers to develop well-planned, well-written curricula. As changes occur in student population, teaching philosophies and methodologies, learners'needs, and in our language and culture, it is necessary for curricula to continually evolve.

Earlier this year, IIB received funding from the Massachusetts Department of Education for a six-month project to expand the current curriculum for our evening ESOL program. This program currently offers three levels of ESOL to adult immigrants and refugees. Classes are held two evenings a week with an optional third evening for learning computer skills and for computer-assisted language learning (CALL). The proposal we submitted for this project outlined three objectives: 1) to develop an evening ESOL curriculum; 2) to develop sample needs assessment tools; and 3) to incorporate technology into the ESOL curriculum, all in all, a very ambitious proposal. The majority of the work I did as coordinator of this project was on the first two objectives. The third objective was accomplished with the help of our Technology Coordinator who trained teachers one-on-one and helped them to develop appropriate CALL activities for their classes.

The curriculum which was being used in IIB's evening ESOL program prior to this project had been based primarily on life skills and job skills because it was developed for our intensive day program for newly-arrived refugees and dislocated workers. Because our evening ESOL program serves a greater diversity of learners from many different countries - refugees, immigrants, employed, unemployed - it was necessary to develop a curriculum that would address a broader range of needs. I wanted to take a bottom-up approach to developing this curriculum by assessing both learners'and teachers'needs and utilizing the knowledge and expertise that our teachers bring to the program to develop a helpful and informative curriculum guide. I also worked with a group of Massachusetts teachers, Department of Education representatives and consultants who have been working together to develop a statewide Framework for Adult ESOL.

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Gathering Learner Input
Because I stepped out of my role as teacher to be the coordinator of this project, I decided to work primarily with the ESOL members of our Student Council. The Council consists of two representatives from each of our evening ESOL and ABE (for non-native English speakers) classes. The Council was originally formed to have more student representation in planning and evaluating our evening programs, and to provide a vehicle for tapping into our learners'needs. It also gave those participating on the Council an opportunity to take on leadership roles: offering ideas for improving our programs, planning events, informing fellow classmates of events, developing surveys and gathering input from fellow classmates.

I met with the ESOL members of our Student Council for about 30-45 minutes prior to class time on three occasions. The meetings were conducted in English. I posed several questions, starting with the obvious: "Why are you here? Why do you need to learn English?" The obvious response was to become self sufficient, or in the words of one Council member, "I don't like to ask my friends, my family, please help me." The questions I generated focused on the use of English at home, at work, and in the community.

I chose to focus on these three areas because of information I have gathered at meetings and conferences; from speakers from Equipped For the Future (EFF); from Heide Spruck Wrigley, a consultant from AGUIRRE International who often discusses the importance of gathering input on learners'needs in the areas of home, work, neighborhood/community, education/school and getting things done; and from representatives from the Massachusetts Department of Education who emphasized at an initial curriculum frameworks meeting the need for a customer-driven learning environment that is responsive to the needs of learners in their three roles: as family member, worker and citizen.

My hope was to obtain information from learners themselves about their needs, interests and goals. With that information, we could create a learner-centered curriculum. How to gather information from students with limited English language skills is always a challenge. Often I used pictures to facilitate conversation. For example, to initiate our discussion about work, I used pictures of people in various jobs as a code for getting students to talk about their own work situations. The questions I asked in the three areas included:

At Home: Why do you need English at home? How do you feel when the phone rings? Who do you need to talk to on the phone in English? What mail do you need to read in English? What do you do when you can't read the mail you receive? Do your children often talk on the phone and translate mail for you? How do you feel about that?

At Work: Was it easy to get your job? Why/why not? How did you get your job? Do you like your job? Why/why not? What did you do in your native country? Do you need English for your job? Why/why not? Who do you talk to? What do you need to read at work? Write at work? What are your plans for the future?

In the Community: Where do you go alone? Where do you go with someone else? Why do you need someone else to go with you to this place? Are there places you don't go? Why? Do you have problems that you need to solve but you don't know where to go for the right information?

We gathered considerable input on what systems learners need to navigate when the Coordinator of Adult Education and I met with all the Student Council members from our ABE and ESOL programs to brainstorm on which guest speakers they would like to invite to our school. The Council gave ideas and shared personal stories and then we surveyed all of the learners in the two programs.

It seemed impossible to generate one survey that was appropriate for all the skill levels of our learners in ESOL and ABE, so I developed three versions of a survey in hopes that each teacher could use one appropriate to his/her class and as part of a lesson. For example, the survey used by the lowest level ABE class displays pictures to help represent each system. The teacher could use the pictures on the survey to brainstorm on large paper reasons students gave for wanting a certain speaker and the survey was simple enough for these learners to check which speakers they wanted.

Another version asked learners "why" they wanted a certain speaker, which gave them an opportunity to write. Also, rather than asking students directly, "What problems do you have?", this more indirect way of simply asking students why they are interested in this guest speaker encourages them to share personal stories if they wish without feeling anxious about having to tell their problems. The feedback we gathered from this particular activity was very informative and was used to develop the section in our ESOL curriculum on navigating systems.

An example survey is included at the end of this article.

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Gathering Teacher Input
I met several times with teachers in staff meetings and one-on-one. I wanted to know how often they referred to the current curriculum guide, what they thought should be included in a curriculum and what was not clear to them about our ESOL program.

Because there had been some confusion as to when to move students to a higher or lower level class, it seemed obvious that our levels needed to be more clearly defined for teachers. To address this, I asked teachers to list their students'strengths and weaknesses on large pieces of paper in the categories of the five strands of the Frameworks for Adult ESOL: oral and written communication, language structure and mechanics, navigating systems, intercultural knowledge and skills, and developing strategies and resources for learning.

The first significant piece of information we acquired from this activity was that the teachers could very easily list specific strengths and weaknesses in only two of the five strands: oral and written communication, and language structure and mechanics. The reason was primarily because these are the areas we assess. At the end of each term our teachers meet with learners one-on-one to assess speaking and listening skills and then learners are given a written test to assess reading and writing skills. Therefore, we are assessing a learner's ability to communicate meaningfully and accurately.

It also became very clear to us through this activity that the primary focus of our Beginner Level class is on developing oral communication skills. In Level 1 the learners'needs are more varied in terms of oral and written communication skills but the focus is still on improving oral communication. In Level 2, learners have the skills to communicate; they need to work on accuracy. Because our program places learners in classes based primarily on listening/speaking ability rather than reading/writing ability, this is where there is the greatest differentiation of skill areas. Some learners are very weak in reading and/or writing while others who have studied in our program or other ESOL programs are more proficient in those areas.

To tap into the teachers'knowledge and skills, I asked them how they decide what to teach, how they assess their learners'needs, and how they involve students in curriculum planning. Much of the input I gathered from these meetings with teachers has been included in a section of our curriculum on ways to assess learners needs. I also developed a needs assessment resource binder which includes sample lessons and activities teachers have used to gather input on learners'interests, needs and goals.

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Evening ESOL Curriculum
As a result of many productive meetings and helpful input from active learners and experienced teachers, an evening ESOL curriculum with a number of sections emerged. We hope it will give teachers a holistic picture of the learners, program, curriculum content, important definitions and procedures specific to IIB.

Defining our program
In order to give teachers a clear understanding of our program and how learners are placed in levels we included sections entitled:
• What is IIB's mission?
• Who are our ESOL learners?
• The mission of our evening ESOL program
• How do we initially assess learners?

For example, the way in which we assess and place learners into classes is as follows:

• Applicants are asked to complete an
intake form as best they can without assistance in order to check for basic comprehension of forms. The intake form asks for personal information, work information and personal goals.

• A teacher will begin with an informal conversation with the applicant to predetermine the range of level, and to select appropriate assessment tools as well as to help the applicant feel at ease during the assessment.

• The teacher gives the short form of the BEST oral test to the applicant to determine an SPL level for listening and speaking.

• Applicants are then asked to read a passage at one of three levels which is chosen by the teacher based on the BEST score. The teacher asks questions about the passage orally to which the learner responds orally. The teacher will choose an appropriate grammar test or tests from three examples. Finally, the applicant is asked to write responses to questions or to write a short paragraph. Again the teacher chooses which format is most appropriate to the applicant, in order to check vocabulary, spelling and grammar. The teacher then determines an SPL level for reading and writing based on the reading passage, grammar test(s) and writing sample.

• The teacher decides level of placement based primarily on the SPL for speaking and listening but uses the reading/writing score to determine whether the applicant has formally studied English previously, which may promote him/her to a higher level. Also taken into consideration is an applicant's level of education and whether he/she has contact with other native English speakers outside the class. If an applicant has skills which are too high for our program, he/she is provided information on other programs.

• If an applicant's literacy level is too low for our ESOL program, several options are considered. If the applicant has an SPL 3 or higher in speaking and listening he/she may be a candidate for our ABE for non-native English speakers program which focuses on literacy, reading and writing. If the applicant is a beginner in speaking, listening and literacy, he/she has the option of joining a daytime Beginner ESOL Basic Literacy class if his/her schedule allows. IIB also provides volunteer trainings and applicants may be paired with a volunteer tutor.

Defining Our Levels
In order to more clearly define our three ESOL levels and learners, we incorporated a detailed description of each level including the following sections:

• SPLs
• Student profiles
• Expected outcomes
• Curriculum guide to content areas
• Language structure and mechanics

The SPL section describes the listening/speaking and reading/writing range of learners entering that level. The profiles provide general descriptions of learners at that level which may emphasize inconsistencies, e.g., in listening comprehension, pronunciation, reading or writing abilities. The section on expected outcomes describes the primary focus of learning at that level and what should be achieved prior to moving to the next level. Finally, the guides to content areas and language structure and mechanics are lists of life skills and grammar skills to be addressed at that level.

Determining the expected outcomes for each level was the most difficult part to write. Our outcomes are general and yet they do reflect what learners should be able to do before entering a higher level. Because class placement is primarily based on learners'oral and listening comprehension skills, our outcomes focus more on improvement of these skills and less on reading and writing skills. For Beginner Level and Level 1 there is a stronger emphasis on ability to communicate, while Level 2 emphasizes accuracy in ability to communicate. Below are a few examples of outcomes developed for each ESOL level.

Beginner Level
• Learners are able to respond to basic oral and written questions about personal information including name, address, telephone number, age, date of birth, and country of origin.
• Learners are able to respond to basic oral and written questions about their current job situation or past job(s), for example, job title(s), place of employment, at least one duty, and dates of employment.

Level 1
• Learners are able to respond to oral and written questions about personal information including name, address, telephone number, social security number, age, sex, marital status, date and country of birth, nationality, and native language(s).
• Learners are able to communicate their future plans and personal goals.

Level 2
• Learners are able to monitor their own speech, meaning that they are self-correcting or can self-correct when an error has been made apparent to them, provided the grammar structure has been taught at this level.
• Learners are able to clearly communicate their problems in contexts which affect their lives, e.g., housing problems, health problems, etc.

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Other Helpful Sections in our
ESOL Curriculum

In addition to the sections in IIB's curriculum defining our program and levels, we've included several other sections which include:

• Navigating systems
• Intercultural knowledge and skills
• Developing strategies and resources for learning
• Ways to assess learners'needs
• Guidelines for cycle-end assessment of students
• Guidelines for determining SPLs
• M.E.L.T. student performance levels
As we heard from students, it was clear to us that understanding and negotiating a complexity of systems was important. We included a section entitled "Navigating Systems" in our curriculum. It is similar to the guide to content areas incorporated into the descriptions of levels, but is divided by system as opposed to level of proficiency. Here is an example of one
system:

Systems of Transportation
• Knowing types of public transportation, e.g., subways, trains, buses, and commuter rail.
• Being able to ask for directions and location of stops, to request a stop on a bus or subway.
• Knowing where to get schedules, how to ask for and read schedules.
• Knowing where to buy tokens and passes and the different types of passes.
• Being able to ask for a certain amount of tokens or a certain type of pass.
• Knowing how to get to destinations beyond the local area using transportation, e.g., Amtrak, airlines or bus lines.
• Knowing how to buy tickets and make reservations to places beyond the local area, and how to ask questions regarding schedules and prices.

The sections on "Intercultural Knowledge and Skills" and "Developing Strategies and Resources for Learning" primarily make reference to resources at IIB and the Massachusetts Frameworks for Adult ESOL for further information. To help teachers plan ways to assess their learners'needs, we included in our curriculum a collection of methods gathered from teachers and from reference materials for assessing what learners need and want to learn. To help teachers plan final evaluation activities we have included guidelines for cycle-end assessment and for determining students'SPLs and level advancement.

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The Work Continues
This curriculum is still a work-in-progress. Now it is necessary to critically evaluate it. Are the levels more clearly defined? Are the expected outcomes for each level realistic? Do teachers feel that this is a helpful guide? How are students responding? What else would we like to include? In the future, as our program continues to change and as expertise grows in the ESOL field, there will be more opportunities for teachers to further develop curricula. Taking on this role was a great learning experience for me and I have benefited from the knowledge I have gained from teachers, learners and consultants with whom I have worked.

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Originally published in Adventures in Assessment,
Volume 12 (Winter 2000),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 2000.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.